His hard-earned money bought a house which did not suit his traditionally-rustic-wood-and-shingles neighborhood. He could finally afford everything his visions dictated. In a trance, he drafted blueprints verifying mathematical, architectural and archaeological integrity. Cairo-quarried limestone, equilateral sides, an immense base leaving no space for any chance of a yard or jacuzzi, monolithic. It was built in six hundred and twenty-four days.
He settled in cozily, never marrying or fathering, yet content. After many years, his latent visions awoke and he knew his existence confined to Earth came time to end. He watered his houseplants, deposited his outbound mail, and removed his business casual attire and his underwear. He composed explicit instructions for Rosetta in rudimentary Spanish.
The bathroom contained no evils, only whiteness: the tiles hid no intersticed grout, all pubic hair and other human impurities had been swept, and essence oils purified the smell of foul deeds done. Rosetta was a meticulous keeper of cleanliness. He made note that she be rewarded for her akh-deeds. He entered the sarcophagus, an clawfoot porcelein tub.
Finally. I'm done with all this. These visions are all promise, promise, promise. And now it's time to collect. Just me with all the other pharaohs. Limousines, champagne, harems. No more 9-to-5. I can't wait.
The pill dissolved in the milk, which he and his pussycat drank. The cat's eyes closed first, then the man's.
Though garbled by his poor command of Spanish and jittery manuscript, Rosetta eventually deciphered his macabre instructions: Eliminar todo, pero el corazón. She received Jesus' forgiveness before earning her daily wage. Rosetta broke the bone behind his nose to excavate his cranial marmalade. She sealed the stomach, intestines, liver, and lungs in canopic tupperware and stowed it behind the mayonnaise and to the left of the kosher deli pickles. All other organs were eviscerated and discarded -- except, as instructed, his heart. She piled all his material things on the tile floor, painted him with varnish, and swaddled bedsheets about his still form. Then Rosetta collected her paycheck and left his home for the last time.
His death received a blurb in the Auburn Post obituaries. Respect for the dead and editorial restraint merely insinuated his eccentricity was in fact lunacy. The Auburn Post hoped 'he found the peace he searched so frantically for'. Ra brought him a copy of the newspaper to the Afterlife and they both had a good chuckle.
I'm glad Ra suggested I bring my cat. The pharaohs are alright, they don't talk much. Especially Djedefra. They're stuck with that sort of stoicism only omnipotence brings. Maybe it's the whole language barrier thing. The weather's always balmy, so we're making the same platitudinous conversation every day. Every day for all eternity. But they're always gabbing with Ra, though -- He's the only One worth talking to. But the rest of it gets boring: splashing in the Celestial Nile, watching the crops grow higher and higher, unending bliss.
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